31 Days of Horror Reviews 2018: The Invisible Woman

The Invisible Woman focuses more on slapstick and romance than horror.

REVIEW

An absent-minded scientist (John Barrymore) invents a machine that will turn people invisible and needs human test subjects. Kitty Carroll (Virginia Bruce), a department store model, volunteers for the project and immediately uses her new found power to get back at her abusive boss. At the same time, a gang that ironically has Shemp Howard in their group steal the machine with the attempt to make their boss, Blackie Cole (Oskar Homolka), invisible so he can sneak back into the country. The whole movie is full of slapstick, quips, and pratfalls and the fact that Shemp Howard is in it, feels like a Three Stooges film. It easy to make the assumption that this was made around the same time as the Abbot and Costello movies, but it actually came out the same year as The Invisible Man Returns!

This film is more lighthearted and fun than the previous Invisible Man films, but that’s part of the charm. It plays on the more playful side of invisibility. Even though I would like to see an Invisible Woman film where the character develops the same delusions of power, it apparently wasn’t right for this time period. Still, this was a very fun sequel and had my attention from beginning to end.